Molded rubber products are required for a variety of industrial uses. For certain applications, the rubber must be highly compressed during intermediate stages of production. In order to maintain the rubber in a highly compressed form during such intermediate stages, the rubber may be held at cryogenic temperatures. In subsequent stages of production, the rubber expands as it returns to ambient temperatures.
Liquefied gases, such as liquid nitrogen, may be used to achieve the cryogenic temperatures required to maintain rubber in a highly compressed form. However, rubber tends to absorb liquid nitrogen upon direct contact, thereby becoming brittle and susceptible to fracturing. Existing methods for chilling highly compressed rubber forms therefore apply liquid nitrogen to the external surfaces of compression plates. The rubber is then conductively chilled by the interior surfaces of the compression plates. For example, a manifold of nozzles may spray liquid nitrogen onto the external surface of a compression plate. As the stream of liquid nitrogen flows towards the external surface, a significant portion of the stream vaporizes, thereby reducing the cooling efficiency and increasing the cost of operation of the system due to the consumption of nitrogen. Another significant portion of the stream is directed away from the surface of the plate, also reducing the cooling efficiency of the stream. Finally, once compressed and chilled, the rubber must be stored at the extremely low temperatures pending subsequent production steps, thereby requiring additional cryogenic systems.
Therefore, what is required is a mechanism and process for more efficiently compressing, chilling, and storing rubber or elastomer forms at extremely low temperatures.